THE PRIME Minister is to personally spearhead "a comprehensive renewal of the inner cities" beginning with the Central Business District of downtown Kingston. Following from his recent address to the nation, we must await the details which will be made known just prior to the Budget presentation to start the new parliamentary year on Thursday, March 29.
The inner cities, with their desperate circumstances, including the highest murder rates in the country, have from time to time become the objects of special attention from the Government.
Over the years, billions of dollars cumulatively have been, in fact, pumped into the inner cities. There are those who argue that if more resources both from Government and the private sector, were made available, significant improvements could be made. Undoubtedly, more resources are needed, as for the rest of the country. The economists are telling us that, against the popular wisdom, rural poverty is worse than urban poverty. But, unless the social decay, crime levels and tribalisation of these fractured urban communities can be reversed, their renewal, growth and development will not happen. Resources flow out of communities in which economic activity cannot take root and prosper. The rule of the don -- political, gang or drug -- is one of the fundamental roadblocks to any meaningful urban renewal.
Prime Ministerial spearheading must be viewed with caution: Mr. Patterson has taken tourism and a number of other areas under his wing in the past, only to have them suffer benign neglect. We recall his predecessors' famous taking charge of Agriculture, which then continued its downward slide at the time.
National renewal, in broad meaningful ways, is the single most important task to which Prime Minister Patterson could turn his attention at this time.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
